Opinions for Richards Microfit Stocks

I know that I read here sometime ago that someone had gotten one of these stocks. I am in the process of planning out and pieceing together a new rifle. I really like the wood stocks on a standard hunting rifle and thought I would go with one of these.

I am also open to opinions to other brands or companies, as well as recommendations for someone who specializes in custom stocks or does stock work.

I am pretty profecient with hand tools as well as wood working, so the minor stuff isn't to much of a deal to me, I just don't want to screw up a great looking stock just to be hard headed.

I bought a Wildcat thumbhole in camo laminate from them a couple years ago. They claimed it was 95% inletted and just needed minor fitting. When it arrived, it was the roughest stock I had ever laid my hands on. It had huge tooling marks all over the stock, and the 95% inlet job was more like 60%. Luckily I had some experience with stock inletting and finishing, but it was still a HUGE project to get it to come out nice. Not saying there stocks aren't nice stocks when finished, it's just all the work that it takes to make them that way. I personally wouldn't recommend them. I would go with Joel Russo, he is making some very fine stocks. Just my .02 cents.

Mike
I've got a picture of two of them in the "Long range rifle thread". I know they aren't your typical hunting stock, but it gives you an idea how well they can look.

Now the other shoe.

When the first one showed up I almost sent it back, man it was rough, but I had never ordered any thing but a drop ins before so I thought maybe this was normal. I had to widen the recoil lug area to accept the Badger lug, the bottom metal area (Remmy Bdl)wasn't quite large enough, and the mag well wasn't quite deep enough.

Now none of this was really major and about 2 careful hours with a Dremel remedied the problems, however I still had 35-40 hrs of work into the stock by the time I had it finished with Tru oil.

The second one was a Remmy ADL and it was less time consumeing than the first but still required minor Dremel work.

Overall they require alot of sanding to get really nice.

When I do my next laminate it will be one of Joel Russos he has some very nice looking stuff and can get whatever colors your interested in. If you would like to see some of his pictures email him at jkrussos@comcast.net and ask him to send you the pictures he sent to winmagman.

Hope this helps
Chris

__________________
Ignorance can be treated with education, sadly there is no cure for stupidity.

i emailed joel russo the other day and he replied back in less than a hr i emailed him several times with quistions and he allways replied back almost emededitly he emailed me pics of several style and colors of his stocks i'll be sending him a check tomorrow couldnt ask for better service

Joel is really nice to work with and easy to get along with. He can have the laminate made up piece by piece to you color preferences.

His foreends are about 4 inches longer than normal which really helps with long barreled guns. Obviuosly, if you don't want it that long a saw will remedy that.

He has quite a few more stock patterns than before. The A5 laminate is his best seller but I have a thumbhole varminter on my antelope gun. The antelope are terrified that I might bring that gun back to Wyoming again.

If you should go with the A5L remember that Shawn Carlock makes an adjustable check piece that can be used depending on what it is your are building.